wedding

I'm not the only one here with a collection. As you may know - especially if you were at our wedding - Pat collects Pez. Well, he is on a bit of a Pez-collecting hiatus, but he does have quite an impressive Pez collection. We even had bride and groom Pez dispensers on our wedding cake.

FINALLY, thanks to Time Warner and Pat Reed, we have the Internet again! As promised, here are quite a few pictures from Rory and Jennie's wedding.

Getting Greta ready.

As far as I know, no pictures exist of Greta walking down the aisle because it really did not go well and none of the Reeds were in their places. Greta seemed fine until it was time to line up with the other girls, then she seemed to panic. Pat ended up walking with her, and she made it about halfway then started crying and sort of ran the rest of the way. Awww. I was fretting about it in the back of the church, so I wasn't in the pew. I think it only could have gone worse if Pat also ripped the back of his pants while walking down the aisle. Anyway, here are the beautiful bride and daper groom.

For a little while after the wedding Greta was super grumpy. Pat had to have a heart-to-heart conversation with her.

Still, for a while, Greta was maaaaaad.

Luckily she rallied for the group photos and happily posed for those. First they took some at the college, their alma mater and where they married.

Greta enjoyed running around campus before going to the beach.

Action shot.

When we got to the beach, there were some more group photos. Here are Rory, Jennie, the ring bearer, and of course their beautiful flower girl.

I love this shot: They had sliders as one of their many delicious hors d'oeuvres, and Greta was in all her glory.

Pretty Greta on the beach. What I wouldn't give to have this girl's hair...

The whole wedding (other than the dreaded walk down the aisle) was so lovely and so fun. Greta, in particular, loved dancing. Here she is getting down to the calypso band during cocktail hour.

Many, many times during the evening, she grabbed my hand (or Pat's, or her Grandma Norma's) so she'd have a dancing partner.

We had a great weekend at the beach in Connecticut for my cousin Rory and his blushing bride Jennie's wedding. Right now things are still crazy busy, so for the time being this is all you get. Check back soon for about a hundred pictures of Greta, flower girl extraordinaire, oh, and some other people, like the bride and groom.

And in case you're curious, no we haven't had an offer on the house yet, which is the low point of this otherwise lovely weekend. It has only been on the market for 3.5 days, though, so it's still early.

A friend IM'd me today saying she's sad because she gets her "news" from this here site and from npr.com, and pnf.com is "broken" (aka, I haven't been updating due to my computer issues) and npr.org is in the middle of a pledge drive. I could pull a Homer and make a big donation to NPR so they can quickly wrap up their pledge drive, but it would probably be better to dust of Pat's old laptop and post an update. So here I am. Ta-da!

So we've got some updates. Lemme see. We went to Alexandria, Virginia, this weekend for our good friend Pete's wedding (okay, he was Pat's friend first - since high school - but we've been good friends since maybe circa 2000?). We had only met his fiancé/wife one time before the wedding, but it is very, very clear these two are meant to be together. It was a wonderful wedding and reception filled with personal touches (from their choice of celebrant, a friend who compared them to pancakes and syrup, to Pete's lovely graphic designer-y touches on the favors), and we had a blast. I was sort of drunk with freedom and danced like a crazy person, and Pat humored me by dancing with me for a good portion of the evening. Here are some of my favorite pictures.

Here is Pete and the blushing bride, Rachel, being introduced as husband and wife.

Here is Pat "I'm bringing s3xy back" Reed dancing.

I busted out my red sunglasses, which I often wear to weddings and were actually originally given to me by Pete. Wearing them to this wedding was extra meaningful.

After the wedding, we rallied and hung out for a bit at one of the hotel bars.

The downside of the weekend was we had to spend almost the whole day in the car on Mother's Day, which is really not my idea of a good time (and G was at my parents' house, so I had minimal amounts of time with her too). To add insult to injury, we made a stop in Binghamton to grab some pizza, and I left my purse in the restaurant and didn't notice until we got to Skaneateles. D'oh. Pat drove back there to get it while I stayed with Greta at my parents' house. Thankfully, it still had the same contents it had when I left it, and Pat was not the least bit critical of me (he even said the extra drive was "kinda fun"...he's really sweet like that). We finally got back home at 9ish PM, and I swear I'm still tired and my feet STILL HURT (a little).

What else? Um, I'm looking forward to doing no traveling in the foreseeable future. I'm happy to report Greta is finally potty trained. I'm really loving reading John Steinbeck's East of Eden, and you should really read it and not be scared away by its page count. And, in closing, I'm tired and going to bed.

I've been negligent in my updates the last two weeks. Two weekends ago, we went out to Phelps and Canandaigua for our friends Margaux and Steve's wedding. Everything was so lovely, and you could certainly tell there was a lot of thoughtful detail put into things. I cried three times, which is the mark of a good wedding. (I am kind of a sap.)

By last Saturday, I thought my tum was on the mend but, unfortunately, that was not the case. As the day/evening went on, I felt kind of like I wanted to die. I was very upset, too, because there was filet mignon and a hoppin' dance floor, and it was all wasted on me. Boo!

Presenting the Judges!

Here is my good friend Tim (also the brother of the bride) holding flowers. I can't help but document it when I see a man holding a nice, big, pink bouquet and a purse.

This past weekend I was feeling much, much better (thankfully!). It was good timing, too, because we had a bit of a reunion with some old friends. On Saturday, we got together with the Fs (now featuring Elise), the Ls (now featuring Benjamin), the Ts (now featuring twins in utero!!), and the Hs (now featuring shiny wedding bands). It was such a wonderful night. It felt so nice to see them all and spend some time together. We only got a couple pictures from that night, unfortunately. Here are Benjamin and Greta.

And another for ya. I'm really not sure what prompted that look from Greta. That's another thing she got from me: the look of utter pissiness.

Sunday, we went to our wee friend Willem's birthday party. He turned the ripe old age of one recently, so his parents threw him a party. Here is Will and his daddy-o.

Greta loved the favors she got at the party. Here is Greta showing off one of her gifts (and her bottom molars).

Here's our cute bunny wearing a makeshift halo. She was quite an angel this weekend, so it was a much deserved accessory.

Um, and then last night, around midnight, Greta started coughing her head off and has a nasty cold. Uhh, so sorry to all you kids who shared a sippy cup with her this weekend. Our bad.

We celebrated my new job by going to Outback and then popping open a very nice bottle of wine that we had been saving for a special occasion, making popcorn, and sitting down to watch a couple re-runs of Campus Ladies. Yeah, whatever, you would love Campus Ladies too if you would just give it a chance. It was actually a pretty early evening because I'm a tired lady.

Saturday was our friend Hilary's wedding. I met Hilary back in the bad old days of working on the Cisco project at LMNK. She and I shared a cube wall. Oh, if that cube wall could talk. Joking. Anyway, Hilary and I lost touch for a while there, but now we're back!

Hilary and the very British Daniel (he's not just sort of British, he's very British) got married at the First Universal church, which is an amazing looking church that I've driven by at least a hundred times. It's absolutely beautiful from the outside and is square (I love square things except for square bagels, or squagels). I've always wondered what it looked like on the inside, so I got to find out! From the inside it looks like...a church. It was a very lovely and short ceremony. I checked out the church's website prior to the ceremony because that's what I do, and I saw some of the minister's poems - one about Ozzy Osborn. I may need to start going to this church.

The reception was held at the Cobblestone House at Mendon Ponds. It was a little bit of a treacherous walk up the small hill to the house, but inside it was beautiful and cozy. There was a nice fire going and there was hot cocoa with all the fixin's ready for us. The one thing I can say is that this reception was quite unconventional (no dancing, no booze), but it was really wonderful. There were so many lovely, personal touches. I was sold with the hot cocoa, but then it got even better. For dinner there were bread bowls of either clam chowder or stew; salad with blue cheese, walnuts, and pears; and fresh fruit. So good on a cold day. The wedding "cake" was a tower of Krispy Kreme doughnuts (yum) and then there was also rice pudding and petit fours for dessert. The favors were back scratchers, which got our table on the topic of formication. Yes, you heard me right: formication. Is that anything like fornication? Dear lord, I hope not. Only at Hilary Homer's (née Shroyer) wedding would I learn a new word!

Anyhoo, the wedding was the highlight. Sunday we just caught up on some things. And now it's Blue Monday. Bah.

This past weekend was insane-o weekend of weddings. It required a ridiculous amount of driving and lots of planning and whatnot, but it was great and I wouldn't have changed a thing.

Friday, Vienneau and Mary Ann got married at the haunted Beardslee Castle in Little Falls, NY. The wedding itself was more like dinner theater than a traditional ceremony. It had a Willy Wonka theme, and Vienneau's antics did not disappoint. Most people feel the wedding is the bride's day. In this case, it was Vienneau's day. It was wonderful, though, and I will never forget it. I thought it was funny, and charming, and beautiful, and I cried when I saw our Vienneau get hitched. I can't believe he's all grown up.

Due to the castle's ghost population, I'm guessing, I had NOT ONE PICTURE turn out that I took there. I had to pilfer one from our friend Frank's page. Here is Frank, the lovely Mrs. Vienneau, and dear Pat Reed.

After the ceremony and a very small portion of the reception, I left Pat and headed out to Utica for Rebecca and Bryan's rehearsal. It was so nice to see Rebecca so happy and to hang out with some old friends and finally meet Bryan's family. Pat met up with me there and we cut the night short to head back to Skaneateles to hang with Greta for the night, where she was staying at my parents'.

Saturday morning, we headed back to Utica for Rebecca and Bryan's big day. The ladies got makeup and hair done and did girl stuff. That evening was the wedding and it was such a wonderful experience being Rebecca's co-matron-of-honor. Pat had a speaking role in the wedding as one of the readers. The reception was so much fun. I danced like crazy and even whooped it up a bit since we were away from the child for the night. I even heard a woman call me a "little spitfire." I have never been called such a thing and I loved it!

Here is a picture of the hottest co-matrons-of-honor this side of the Mason-Dixon.

Here, of course, is Mr. and Mrs. Bryan H.

OMG, and Erika, from Gallery Salon, that did our hair did an amazing job. Check this out! My hair could be in a magazine!

I haven't been as diligent about getting pictures of Greta with us being out of town and some general laziness going around, but here are a couple. First, Greta loungin' in her Polo turtleneck watchin' Baby Einstein.

We had a fantastic weekend! Saturday morning, Pat and I got up bright and oily, at 6 AM to go to Lake Placid for our friend Courtney’s wedding. On our way out of Rochester, we stopped at Breugger’s to get a couple bagels. When we were getting our food, Pat told me he had a present for me in the car. This seemed quite out of the ordinary, so I told him to "shut up." I really had no idea he was serious until we got back in the car and he handed me a wrapped gift. I opened it and found the greatest birthday gift ever: a Sirius satellite radio. Terrestrial radio is for chumps! I was soooo excited because I’ve been talking about wanting a Sirius radio forever, because I’m a huge closet Howard Stern fan, and satellite radio seems like the bee’s knees in general. It never dawned on me that I might actually get one though! I made one quick phone call and we got the radio set up, and then we spent the next five hours enjoying it! It made the long trip to Placid very nice.

Sorry for the crappy picture. And no, it doesn't play Nickelback 24/7.

We got up there just in time to get to the ceremony at the Adirondack Community Church. The ceremony was very lovely, and Courtney and her new husband, Andrew, looked so happy. After the ceremony, as we were going through the receiving line, we met their wedding party and parents. As I went up to Courtney’s mom (who I’d never met before), I started to say, "Hi, I’m Fran and this is my husband Pat..." and she said, "Of patandfran.com??" Apparently, Courtney’s mom is a fan of the site, so I want to give Nikki a big "shout out"!

The reception was at a great Mediterranean restaurant called Nicola’s. The food was fantastic. I vote it best steak at a wedding reception (sorry to other steaks eaten at wedding receptions that may be offended). Being all tired and pregnant, I was pretty damn boring that night, but I had fun watching everyone on the dance floor. Courtney and her high school friends had dance routines to tons of songs and it was ridiculously entertaining to watch. During the reception, the DJ announced that it was snowing. I thought he was full of sh1t until I saw that it really was snowing! It was great to experience our first snow of the year at such a fun event.

Oh, during our time in Lake Placid, we stayed at Art Devlin's Olympic Motor Inn, or as I like to call it, Art Linkletter's Home for Wayward Boys. It was very economical and we were extremely impressed with how clean and nice it was. If you're out that way, look up our homeboy, Art.

On a heath update, my migraine stayed strong from Monday last week until Saturday night. It finally went away Saturday and came right back on Sunday afternoon. Then, on Monday morning, I woke up sick as a one-eyed dog. I think I may have gotten a stomach bug or food poisoning. I’m not blaming the reception steak…I blame the fact that I let Pat talk me into going to Cracker Barrel on the way home. The picture he took of me right after the meal is just foreshadowing, really.

I spent yesterday morning doing a fair amount of puking and with the migraine, of course. Fun times. The good news is that my doctor gave me some Tylenol with codeine and it helped my headache significantly. Yay drugs. I hope the baby likes codeine. The acupuncture appointment is Friday. I can’t wait.

Hoi hoi. We just got home from a trip to Skaneateles. We killed two birds with one stone this weekend by going to our friends Marisa and Tim's wedding and celebrating Father's day at my parent's house.

Saturday afternoon we met up with Taryn, my best friend from high school, and Todd, Taryn's husband. We went to one of my very favorite restaurants, Doug's Fish Fry. We just kind of hung out and tooled around the town of Skaneateles until it was time to get ready for the wedding. The ceremony was at the Tiffany-designed Willard Chapel in Auburn. Following the ceremony was the reception at the Skaneateles Country Club (the same place Pat and I tied the knot). We had a great time. It was really nice to see some old friends and enjoy some good food and wine.

This morning, my mom and I went to church, and then we went home and started preparing the Father's day dinner. Last year on Father's day, I had one of my bridal showers, so my dad got kind of gypped out of his special day. To make up for it, I negotiated a dinner of clams and lobster tail. As you can see, it was spectacular!

I'm quite tired from lack of sleep this weekend, so I'll keep things short. Here are some pictures from Marisa and Tim's big day.